Students hold Ash Wednesday 'Glitter+Ash' event to promote 'queer history' and 'equity' in Christianity
'Jesus was about love and inclusion, and we want to open up that tradition to everyone.'
On Feb. 14, a student group at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas hosted an Ash Wednesday event titled “Glitter+Ash” to combine religion and LGBT ideology.
On Feb. 14, a student group at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas hosted an Ash Wednesday event titled “Glitter+Ash” to combine religion and LGBT ideology.
The event was sponsored by “Us 4 U” and the United Methodist Campus Ministry, according to President Tisa Mason’s Facebook page. Us 4 U identifies as an “inclusive, faith-based, student organization focused on providing service.”
[RELATED: Catholic Jesuit University promotes first-of-its-kind ‘LGBTQ Resource Center’]
Us 4 U told Campus Reform that the group believes in “equity” in which “folx” are not “just all given the same and told to make do, but are given what they need.”
Us 4 U also emphasized the need to add “new traditions,” citing the “historic exclusion, ostracization, and hatred that LGBTQ+ people have traditionally experienced at the hands of the church.”
“There is a tradition of exclusion, and we don’t feel it really reflects what Jesus was about,” Us 4 U adviser Cheryl Duffy said according to Hays Post. “Jesus was about love and inclusion, and we want to open up that tradition to everyone.”
”Glitter is a sign of hope, which does not despair,” the Us 4 U information cards distributed at the event reportedly read. “It signals our promise to repent, to show up, to witness, to work. Glitter never gives up — and neither do we. Glitter+Ash captures the relationship between death and new life.”
Hays Post also reports that this is the fifth time the campus group has held the event at the school since 2017.
According to The Daily Signal, the university sent a campus-wide email one day before Ash Wednesday that encouraged students to “Get your ash on campus!” The school has since clarified, however, that the advertised event was organized by the student group, and that “inclusion of the university brand mark in the header is not intended to serve as an affirmed or implied endorsement of the beliefs and views held or expressed by any Student Organization.”
A copy of the email was obtained by Libs of Tiktok and posted to X.
“You can get your Ash Wednesday ashes to go. You can choose traditional ashes or Glitter+Ash (make-up grade, biodegradable, purple glitter mixed with traditional ashes),” the email reads.
“‘Glitter is an inextricable element of queer history…Glitter+Ash is an inherently queer sign of Christian belief, blending symbols of mortality and hope, of penance and celebration,” the email continues. “‘This Ash Wednesday, we will make that spark [of life] easier to see. We will stand witness to the gritty, glittery, scandalous hope that exists in the very marrow of [the LGBTQ+] tradition.’”
Yes this is real. @FortHaysState turned Ash Wednesday into an LGBTQ event celebrating queerness with glitter and ash.
This was one student’s reaction: pic.twitter.com/ZZGxXlBcGT— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 14, 2024
Campus Reform spoke to the president of the university’s Students for Life group, Rylie Zeller, who felt “Glitter+Ash” degraded the meaning of Ash Wednesday.
“In the Catholic Church, the ashes distributed on Ash Wednesday symbolize that we are sinners, but through Christ those sins are forgiven,” she said. “The sanctity of Ash Wednesday shouldn’t be taken out of context, and shouldn’t be used to further an agenda that does not align with the truth of the gospel.”
Campus Reform contacted Fort Hays State University. This story will be updated accordingly.
